Two days later, the medical examiner ruled Tex’s death an accident.
After starting his car in the garage, he had left it running while he ran back inside to get something. On the way back to the car he had slipped and hit his head, knocking himself out. Unfortunately, he’d also fallen on the remote control to the garage door, closing it. Unconscious and unable to escape the exhaust fumes that quickly filled the small garage, Tex had died from carbon monoxide poisoning.
But I could tell by the look on Cade’s face that he didn’t believe it.
He didn’t believe it at all.
CADE
Chapel was a somber affair. The three empty chairs at the table were a grave reminder of the loss we’d suffered in the last few months. Sometimes I wondered if the damn club was cursed. So much had gone wrong lately.
Again, charters from all over the country descended on our small town for the funeral. We hadn’t had a funeral in the club for almost eight years, but we were about to have our third in three months.
And I couldn’t shake the feeling that we hadn’t seen the last of the bad luck.
I felt helpless. Jackie had died of natural causes. But Isaac, he had been murdered, and the need to find out why was driving me to distraction. Now Tex was dead and I couldn’t shake the feeling that it wasn’t an accident.
It reeked of foul play.
Before Bull called an end to chapel, he stood up and dropped a patch on the table in front of me. Embroidered in white letters on black leather were the words Vice President.
The vote had been cast days earlier, prior to Tex’s death, and the vote for me had been unanimous. I was now the VP of the Kings of Mayhem original chapter.
The room erupted with applause.
Bull put his hand on my shoulder. “We’ll celebrate after we bury Tex.”
We buried him the next day. He was laid to rest in a family plot in a cemetery just north of Humphrey. We buried him on a warm fall morning. There was the usual procession of bikes snaking down the highway with chapter flags flying in the cool Mississippi breeze. There was the service and the tears, and the heartbreak and everything that goes with the loss of a son, a father, a husband, and a friend.
As I watched his cut disappear into the ground, I wound my arm around Indy’s waist, seeking comfort in the warmth of her body. When we were kids, Tex used to bring me Matchbox cars when he babysat me and my brothers. He taught me how to play poker. He snuck me beers at club barbeques when my mom wasn’t looking. He endured a Britney Spears concert because Indy loved Britney and I loved Britney’s boobs. He was there when I returned from Seattle without my girl and made sure I was okay when my heartbreak got too much for my sorry teenage heart.
Now we were putting him in the fucking ground.
My fingers twitched. Anger and grief crept up my spine and it was growing in strength. I was going to find out who did this.
And I was going kill them.
INDY
The night of the lingerie incident, Cade had gotten in late, and when he had come to bed I had pretended I was still asleep because I wasn’t ready to talk to him. I was hurt. Lonely. And I wasn’t ready to push him to open up to me. I knew what it was like to lose someone you loved—it fucked with your head in ways you could never imagine—and I didn’t want to push him away while trying to pull him to me.
But he was keeping something from me, and I wanted to know what it was.
Two days after Tex’s funeral, I stood across from him in the kitchen of our new home, watching him drink his cup of coffee, and I was tempted to ask him about it. But I realized the likelihood of him telling me was zero to none.
So, when he walked out, saying he had things to do and wouldn’t be back until late, and when he took his car and not his bike, I decided to follow him.
Now I was in my car in front of a diner halfway between Destiny and Humphrey, watching Cade escort two women inside. They sat at a window booth overlooking the parking lot. I watched them order, saw the waitress bring them coffee, saw both women light up a cigarette and Cade start talking. After a while, the waitress brought over two plates of pie, and while she was there she refilled Cade’s coffee. The conversation seemed easy. There were no awkward pauses. No uncomfortable silences. Cade knew these women, and by the looks of it, this situation was familiar to him.